And just about any terms that someone agrees to under contract are enforceable. It was really a poor decision for these companies to put all their eggs into one basket and agree to the high penalties. The contracts do have an end date, though. These companies will have to determine if it's worth it to breach the agreement. Alternatively, the companies might have some success if they present a unified front and attempt to renegotiate the contracts.It's pretty funny to...

They will have to make CurrentC accept EBT.These stores are too heavily invested in MCX and CurrentC to do anything other than fight Apple for now. From http://www.tuaw.com/2014/10/27/a-closer-look-at-currentc-the-reason-why-cvs-and-rite-aid-are-d/ApplePay had over a million users within 72 hours of launch. What will CurrentC have when fully rolled out...50,000 including company employees that may be strong-armed or otherwise coerced into participation? By that time,...

No worries. I'm probably overly sensitive.If I remember correctly, Apple owns the building, and GTAT is staying rent-free as a part of the settlement. I agree that the furnaces may never leave the building. I doubt they get repurposed. What's really for sale is an opportunity to partner with Apple. Hopefully the new partner picks up the good GTAT employees that lost their jobs to bad management. I don't see Apple taking over operations directly, but I would not be...

I'm talking about supply and demand. Greater supply creates a buyers' market with lower prices. There are now 2000 furnaces on the market that weren't there a week ago. Obviously they can be repurposed. But whatever the end use, is there a market out there that will allow GTAT to be able to actually sell these furnaces at a price high enough to repay Apple in full?I never said anything about patents--only furnaces. If you want to disagree with what I wrote, that's...

That's radically optimistic. The gently-used furnace market is saturated with 2000 new furnaces for sale. That will depress prices. Apple announcing that it's process is not ready for production will discourage other companies from attempting what GTAT failed to do. That will also depress prices. Fire sales don't work. They are a way of hopefully not losing all of your ass. Apple will be lucky to recover half of this loan.

I think the opposite is probably true. The engineers probably said we can't do it, but the execs said we can do anything for $439 million. Not to mention the value added to the brand by being an iPhone component supplier...

That may have something to do with it.I really don't know where they think this is going to take them. They already outsource brick-and-mortar operations to the big box stores, anyway. People shop at Best Buy, then turn around and buy it from Amazon. Best Buy has the overhead, and Amazon makes the profit. A big point in Amazon's favor is the sales tax avoidance. Not that it really saves people a lot of money, but a lot of people lose their minds thinking that they...